


I Don't Want To Fall In Love With You

by anxious_soul



Series: Tony Stark-Centric Series [80]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon Divergence - Post-Avengers (2012), Canon Divergence - Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Hurt Tony Stark, I'm Bad At Summaries, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark Friendship, M/M, More or less the same timeline, Not A Fix-It, Past Abusive Relationships are referenced, Protective James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Rhodey is the best, Steve Tony and Rhodey, The Avengers (2012) Compliant, The other Avengers are there but they aren't mentioned, Tony Stark Gets a Hug, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, but to be safe, it's just not really mentioned as to what happens from 2012 to CACW, this fic is pretty much just about
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-25
Updated: 2020-06-25
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:40:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24910978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anxious_soul/pseuds/anxious_soul
Summary: In which Tony and Steve get together when the team moves into the tower, everyone thinks it's the best thing to ever happen to the pair, but Tony fell in love and falling always ends painfully.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Series: Tony Stark-Centric Series [80]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1126895
Comments: 21
Kudos: 154





	I Don't Want To Fall In Love With You

**Author's Note:**

> Righty, so this is going to be part of a teeny little series; there should be three, I haven't written the other two up yet (literally only wrote this story last night -technically this morning), so I don't know when they'll be out, hopefully soon though but I am working on my novel so sometimes I get a bit stuck in that. This series is based on love and lines from songs; it's not a song lyric fic in the sense that there are lyrics in the text, but the title is from a song, this was inspired by said lyric and the line is written in the text as a piece of dialogue.
> 
> This ignores Pepper and Tony being together. Iron Man 3, Ultron and CAWS aren’t acknowledged -but Bucky, Wanda, Sam and Scott are there.
> 
> Song: [Wicked Game by Ursine Vulpine ft Annaca](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66PdUOE6Tqw) (it's not the original, but I recommend it, she's incredible!)
> 
> Also, hey! Would you look at that, I've got two stories up in one month -that hasn't happened in ages!

They got off to a rocky start, no one could deny that, but once the team had moved into the newly named ‘Avengers Tower’ and gotten to know one another, they realised Tony wasn’t such a bad person. Just misunderstood. And terrible at taking care of himself.

Steve, in particular, had taken a liking to Tony once the two apologised for the way they were on the Helicarrier. From then on, the blond would make sure that Tony got food, something other than coffee and sleep into his system. Half of the genius was annoyed but the other half was happy that he had someone else in his corner.

**——LINE BREAK——**

“Rhodey!” Tony exclaimed as he video chatted with his best friend, “I have a problem,” by this point, the Avengers had been living together for several months. Which meant that was several months of Steve being downright caring and kind. And Tony had no clue what to do.

“What?” Rhodey sighed jokingly as he rolled his eyes, Tony tended to be overdramatic, 

“No, no, it’s actually a problem. It’s nothing like that time I thought I was dying -or like the time I actually was dying,” he hastily added, 

“It better not be; that first time, you literally just had the hiccups. I’m not even going to go into the time you actually were dying,” whilst he wasn’t going to talk about it, Tony still got a death glare… yeah, Rhodey (and Pepper and Happy) were still furious with him about that.

“Okay… I may or may not have developed…”

“What was that?”

“I said I may or may not have developed feelings for…”

“Stop mumbling Tones,”

“I said I may or may not have developed feelings for Steve!” He shouted before clasping his hands over his mouth as Rhodey stared wide-eyed at him,

“Okay, I was not expecting that.” With a groan, Tony slumped forwards and smacked his head on the table in an act of defeat, 

“It’s terrible.”  


“Not really,” at that, Tony looked at his best friend, “I mean, look at your history of relationships; the few that weren’t one night stands were toxic as hell, Tones. You’ve dated terrible _terrible_ people; abusive people, manipulative people, I could go on and on-“  


“If you wouldn’t mind getting to your point,” Tony interrupted with a glare,

“Right, right. Anyway, my point is that you and Steve, I see no problem. He’s good for you, Tones. He cares and you care about him. I say go for it.”  


“I’m… Rhodey, I’m scared that I’m falling… in love,” the Colonel’s gaze softened,

“I’ll be here to catch you if you need me, Tones, but you’ll regret it if you don’t go for it.” 

**——LINE BREAK——**

Thing was, Tony was terrified to fall in love. He wanted to be _in_ love, he didn’t want to _fall_ in it though. Which was something he managed to blurt out at Steve at the worst moment. Unsurprisingly, Tony had chickened out of asking the blond on a date, but that wasn’t a problem because Steve had asked him instead. So they were out at dinner, a lovely little Italian restaurant, chatting idly when Tony’s brain to mouth filter stopped working.

“I don’t want to fall in love with you,” Tony looked appalled at his words as Steve stared with furrowed eyebrows and a confused look as he set down his cutlery,

“Pardon?"  


“I… I’ve fallen in love before, not many times, but I have experience with it. Falling means you’re eventually going to hit the ground, right?” Steve nodded, “to me, that’s what falling in love means. If I fall in love with you, eventually all the good, no matter how long it lasts, will come to an abrupt and painful stop,” Steve’s gaze softened as he took Tony’s hands in his,

“You never need to worry about hitting the ground, sweetheart, I’ll always be there to catch you. I promise.”

**——LINE BREAK——**

“I’ve fallen in love with you,” Tony murmured one night as Steve held him close in their bed. They’d been dating for half a year now and it was the first time either of them had uttered the ‘love’ word to one another,

“I love you too,” the blond whispered back as he kissed along Tony’s shoulders and neck before settling back down to sleep, continuing to spoon Tony. 

**——LINE BREAK——**

They’d come a long way since 2012 with bumps and fights followed by apologies and cuddles; Tony had proposed, beating Steve to it, which both amused and annoyed the blond. The engaged couple were set to be married at the beginning of 2017, but the universe was against this as the Accords separated the couples with two sides in the fight; Tony’s side, who were for the Accords and Steve’s side, who were against the Accords. One night the pair went to bed in each other’s loving arms, the next day, those same arms were being used to fight each other. 

Just when Tony thought nothing could be worse than fighting his friends (his family) and having Rhodey permanently injured, Siberia happened. His fiancé knew his parents had been murdered for several years and never bothered to share that with him. His fiancé knew that the man standing behind Tony had been the killer. Never mind the brainwashing factor, when Steve admitted to knowing, Tony’s rage could not be curbed and he lashed out. Instead of comforting him, talking him down and apologising, Steve fought back. Hard.

“He’s my friend,”  


“I’m your fiancé,” was Tony’s response.

In the end, Steve changed the course of his shield at the last second and instead of decapitating Tony, the blond did something far more symbolic. He shoved his shield into the arc reactor, cracking it beyond repair. Steve broke Tony’s artificial heart alongside his real one. This was why he hadn’t wanted to fall in love. This was the end result of a four-year-long fall; a battered broken man left to freeze to death in a metal coffin that wasn’t working as his fiancé walked away.

**——LINE BREAK——**

“Oh Tones, I’m so sorry,” Rhodey murmured as he wheeled his way into Tony’s room; since leaving the hospital, the genius had locked himself away in his room, refusing to leave his bed as he mourned what was once a beautiful almost envious relationship and continued to recover, “I should never have said anything, at least the heartbreak could’ve been spared,” he whispered as he tried to shuffle himself from the chair and onto the side of the bed so he could lay beside his best friend.

“Not your fault, would’ve been heartbroken either way,” Tony mumbled back as he slowly turned around to face his best friend, Rhodey ran a hand through Tony’s unkempt hair.

“I said this would be a good relationship. That he’d be good for you. That you’d regret not asking him out. God was I a fool.”

“I was the fool,”  


“Tones.”

“I didn’t want to fall in love with him; I told him as much. But, I knew I’d fall. I knew it would end badly. The fall was long and sometimes it felt like I was flying, soaring through the sky; but the ground came and like anything that falls, I hit it… and I broke. It hurts,” Tony whispered looking up at his friends with tears trailing down his cheeks, “it hurts, Honey Bear, it hurts so much and I should be looking after you; getting you a solution and making amends for getting you in this mess, but I can’t… I… I hurt too much, Honey Bear and I’m so sorry,” he sobbed. 

“Sssh,” Rhodes whispered, “it’s okay, you’ll be okay, I’ll be okay. You don’t need to do anything for me, Tones. I’m okay. Just let it all out; I’m here for you, so are Pepper and Happy. Even the kid. We’re all here for you, just let it out, I promise things will get better.” 

Tony did just that. He sobbed and wailed into his friend’s arms, while Rhodey murmured soothing words to him. 

**Author's Note:**

> [My tumblr](https://anxious---soul.tumblr.com) feel free to say hi or something!  
> 
> 
> Anyway,  
> Thank you for reading,  
> Hope you enjoyed this,  
> Please leave a kudos and a comment  
> 


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